Postal Service to cut Saturday service?
March 8th, 2010US Postmaster General John Potter last week recommended that the Postal Service eliminate Saturday delivery in order to help stanch the multi-billion dollar bleeding that the USPS has been experiencing for nearly half a decade.
The reason? In addition to frustrating the very customers that the USPS is supposed to be serving, the USPS' junk mail-centric business model isn't very profitable. At all. They lost nearly $300 million in the last three months of 2009 alone, following several years of billion dollar losses.
By all accounts this news is a strong signal that the USPS is finally coming to terms with the way Americans communicate in the 21st Century. We're hoping that part of that awakening includes an understanding that in the 21st Century, Americans expect to have a choice in what they are or are not receiving.
Apparently one of the reforms currently being bandied about is the creation of "a world-class website" for the USPS. Our hope is that they'll seize this opportunity to use that website to run a free, comprehensive, and enforceable Do Not Mail Registry for all Americans to use. The USPS could generate revenue both by selling lists of people who want to receive direct mail to businesses, and also by fining business that violate the registry.
The USPS needs money, and American citizens demand choice. Win-win. Oh, and disrespectful junk mailers lose. So win-win-lose.